Archives: 'News'

Last night at around 9pm, I was mugged by a pair of 16 year olds while on the way to campus for a late-night meeting. Without going too far in to the details, I’d like to present you with seven different accounts of what happened from the local media. I find the variety of the articles, and their inaccuracies, intriguing.

Newspapers:

Times Union – This article is a good starting point, as it probably should be given the Times Union’s position as largest media outlet in the region. It does contain an inaccuracy though. “[O]ne of the suspects threw the wallet into the woods to try to hide it, Cooney said.” They actually threw the wallet down just feet from the scene of the crime, which was in the road at 15th and Christie. There aren’t any nearby woods to throw things in to anyway. The inclusion of the maximum sentence is interesting. I’ve never really understood the reason to print the full addresses of those charged with crimes, but most of the articles include this detail.

Troy Record – This article actually mentions my condition, which is described as “The victim was slightly injured and required no medical attention.” It’s more like I “refused” medical attention. I had several open scrapes that were bleeding and required band-aids. A couple hours later, Public Safety wanted to take me to Samaritan… Also note the incorrect spelling of “Robbery” as “Roberry”. I’m wondering if that typo will make it to print tomorrow.

TV Stations:

WRGB 6 (CBS Affiliate) – First of all, I LOVE the image selection. This article has a bit more of a narrative, and it includes a new item that neither newspaper mentioned – “… when he noticed a group of males paying attention to him.” Indeed, I did notice them ahead of time, and I knew they were following me. I guess a narrative lends itself a bit more to a TV report.

WTEN 10 (ABC Affiliate) – This may be the best overall article. It contains an even additional tidbit, “Police say the victim attempted to flag down several passing vehicles immediately after the alleged robbery and his efforts were ignored.” This was probably the worst part of the event — four cars drove by in the other lane after the two had fled, but before I’d gotten up, and despite my frantic waving, none of them stopped to help. The article covers everything quite nicely, providing a strong narrative and skipping out on irrelevant things like their home addresses.

WNYT 13 (NBC Affiliate) – Not much to say on this one; it was posted later in the day than most of the others, and it’s a direct rehash of the previous stories. It also doesn’t appear on the main WNYT site, just the Troy site.

105.7 Crush FM – I think this is my favorite, I wish I could actually hear the radio DJ read this one. The little embellishments are what make it awesome. “Sunday night was not a very good night” for me. I disagree, it was an exciting night, but what an intro. “The dynamic duo will really love this. They have been charged with robbery which is a felony charge that could net them 15yrs in prison.” Dynamic Duo? Hahaha… Good stuff.

From the aggregate, one can get a pretty good idea what happened. There’s a TON of extra details that make the story more interesting, like how I saw their shadows on the wall of a building ahead of me as a car passed, and how I felt “safe” while their were cars passing, but as soon as the road was empty, they took the opportunity and shoved me from behind. It’s interesting that none of the articles got my direction of travel correct, which was to campus. My injuries were actually pretty decent — My left knee was scraped up pretty good and was bleeding, left hip was substantially scraped (it hurts the worst, currently), right palm was punctured and bleeding, left elbow was scraped, left shoulder scraped, left cheekbone scraped, and an area above the hairline above my temple was scraped and bleeding as well. The bleeding was nothing substantial, but you could smear blood from any of the indicated scrapes.

After the incident, and after four cars had passed, I ran across the street to Joe Perchiacca’s apartment, who was thankfully there. I’m extremely grateful towards Troy PD. Their quick response was more than I could have hoped for. At least six cars were involved, and they had apprehended multiple subjects within minutes. Based on what I’ve seen from the RPI Crime Notice fliers, it seems that arrests being made on Troy muggings are rare. I’m glad things worked out for the best.

Onion Story of the Day

Politics

President Ahmadinejad is in New York, and giving a speech at Columbia University! Too bad they won’t let him go to Ground Zero. Even if he is a horrible terrorist, I believe that he deserves respect. I follow the same logic on Bush too, (R-E-S-P-E-C-T) but atleast Ahmadinejad can string words together to make fluent sentences!

Lolcat of the Day

So, Sunday was pretty awesome. And by awesome I mean that I slept in until 1:00 PM.

Things Accomplished (Not in WoW)

Well, I was running 3rd in the GT1 class in rFactor (racing game) 45 minutes into an 1:30 race. That was Until I made a pitstop and got rammed from behind by another car, and for some reason this caused a VPU lockup. OH WELL. I also worked a bit on the Hilhi SpartsRead website (stay tuned for more) and read 20 pages of Beowulf.

Things Accomplished in WoW

I farmed 6 Primal Mana and stole 3 from my brother for a net gain of 9! I also (finally) got revered with Lower City and got my Auchindoun key. Dailys netted an easy 72g. Farming Primals netter 60g in trash. Good day!

I went with some friends to the 10:00 preview showing of Snakes on a Plane at Cornelius Cimena 9. Let me start by saying the experience was great! I’ve never had such a good time in a movie theater. The movie was everything I’d expected: it featured great Sam-killing-snake action, great snake-killing-people action, and it was corny to the point of hilarity.

The cinematic quality of the movie is pretty low. During the exterior shots of the plane, you can practically see the string holding it up against a painted backdrop. Some of the computer generated snakes look really fake. The acting is sub-par; some of the dialog is just awful.

But it’s the poor quality that makes it even more funny. The entire theater was engrossed in the movie, clapping and cheering whenever Samuel L. Jackson killed a snake, or a snake killed someone. We counted down the timer until the snakes were released, we said “I’VE HAD IT WITH THESE MOTHERFUCKING SNAKES ON THIS MOTHERFUCKING PLANE” right along with Jackson, we sang along with the music video at the end. There were a couple scary moments, and there was one oh-my-god moment at the end where the theater went silent.

I would love to go see the movie again. It was good enough to warrant a second viewing. But I doubt it will be as purely awesome as Thursday night was. Like my paper said “It’s an A+ movie if you see it with a crowd in theaters this weekend, but any time afterward, it will be a C-, a poorly written, acted, and filmed B movie.”

Finally, some researchers at Ryerson University have developed a technology very similar to the version I perfected years ago. Their version of a robotic student allows the actual human to stay at home while a robot attends class for them at school. The only difference between their technology and my own is that my robot looks much more human, while theirs looks much more like a machine.